WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Good teams find a way to win and that’s exactly what happened Wednesday night at Platt Arena when the #21 HU women’s basketball team eked out a 65-62 win over Goshen to move to 10-1 on the year, 2-0 in league play.

The start of the game had all the makings of a blowout as HU allowed their visitors just six points through the first 13 minutes of play to take a commanding 21-6 lead by the 6:27 mark of the second quarter. But the wheels came off for Culler and crew after that.

By halftime, the Maple Leafs had trimmed it to four at 23-19 to turn the contest into a dog fight the rest of the way. The final 20 minutes featured seven ties and 12 lead changes with the final :15 seconds proving to be the most eventful.

Goshen’s leading scorer Graysen Cockerham, who had tallied just five points up to that point, came up big by scoring on a floater to give her team a 62-61 advantage.

Sam Hammel answered by weaving her way through traffic in the lane to kiss one off the glass with five ticks left. While Huntington reclaimed the lead at 63-62, the ball was back in the hands of Goshen for a chance to win it. But a stingy HU defense denied the inbounds pass at half court with the huge pay off coming by way of a five-second call.

It was logistics after that as Culler designed a play to get the ball to Fryman, the second-best free throw shooter in the nation, who calmly sank both freebies to extend the lead to three. With no timeouts remaining, the Maple Leafs had to settle for a heave to no avail to end the late game dramatics.

After scoring just two points in the first half, Fryman roared back to top HU with 18 points to go along with a team-best eight rebounds. She made her living at the free throw line where she went a perfect 10-for-10. As a team, the Foresters missed just one free toss on the night by going 18-for-19 for 94.7 percent.

Hammel finished with 16 points and handed out a game-high seven dimes. Alexandria Bope scored all six of her points in the first quarter while Sara Doi also tossed in six points in addition to swiping a career-best five steals.

Janara Flowers poured in a career-high 19 points for Goshen to top all scorers. TaNiece Chapman collected 17 points and 11 rebounds for the game’s only double double.

Both teams posted identical shooting percentage of .377 by going 23-for-61. The battle of the boards slightly favored the Foresters 41-40 while HU committed 11 TOs to Goshen’s 16.

Culler and company hit the road on Saturday to face Grace at 1:00 p.m.